Since our survey of trainees in 2004 highlighted a number of barriers to participating in research, we have put in place a number of resources which we hope will break down these barriers.

The Trainees Section of the BGS website now has a series of guides on how to get into research, how to select a project, sources of funding and how to present the results. All this, along with the ongoing case studies on ‘How I got into research’ are available on the BGS website.

Our most recent innovation is an index of the major academic centres for geriatric medicine in the UK, together with their areas of research interest. The index was launched in August 2005, and the idea of this resource is to let you know what is going on in nearby centres, and also to point you to the right part of the country if you already have a burning area of interest.

We hope that the information will make life easier for trainees thinking of doing some research, but we also hope that it will act as a ‘shop-window’ for academic geriatric medicine departments throughout the UK. In the early part of last year, we sent questionnaires to all professors and senior lecturers of geriatric medicine on the BGS database, canvassing for details of their respective academic centres. If your academic centre is not listed on the website, it is because you did not return your questionnaire and we would invite you to send your information (or amendments to currently posted information). Information we need is:

• Official name of centre
• Website URL (if the centre has one)
• Name of head of centre (with email)
• Names of other academic staff (with email)
• List of areas of research interest (please see website for list)
• Any other information you would like to provide for the trainees section of the BGS website
• Name and title of person providing the information

Please let us know what you think of this resource, along with suggestions for improvements, changes in format, or additional resources. Thanks are due to Phyo Myint for his work on index.

Miles D Witham
Clinical Lecturer in Ageing and Health
Vice chair, BGS Trainees Committee